Application of metal organic framework in wastewater treatment and detection of pollutants: Review

School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Department of Civil Engineering,

Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur-721 302, West Bengal, India

E-mail: ghangrekar@civil.iitkgp.ac.in

Manuscript received online 12 December 2019, accepted 01 March 2020

Metal-organic frameworks (MOF) are strategically designed porous material with a very high surface area. Metal ions surrounded by organic linkers form a three-dimensional MOF structure with special abilities like high adsorbing capacity, excellent catalyzing behavior and photo-activity. Presently, MOFs are widely investigated as an adsorbent to remove heavy metals and xenobiotic compounds from wastewater. Several purposefully designed MOFs based on Zn, Zr, Cr and Fe are able to achieve very high (≥ 90%) dye removal efficiencies by adsorption. Because of photo-sensitive nature, MOFs act as an excellent photocatalyst for the degradation of emerging pollutants. These MOFs can also be used as sensors for the detection of antibiotics and heavy metals present in wastewater. Sulfonamide and ceftriaxone sodium antibiotics, heavy metal like Cr6+ can be successfully detected by MOF based sensors with minimum detection limit of 4 ppb. Another important application of MOF is as an ORR catalyst in the cathode chamber of microbial fuel cell (MFC), which was also noticed in the recent time and significant improvement in power recovery and wastewater treatment efficiency of MFC was reported. However, very less number of articles are available in this context and considerable future scope for investigation is present. This articles provides review of literature on application of MOF in wastewater treatment.